Caroline

Just so you get notified re my most recent post!

Sam X

Ladies,

I just want to say, we are damn tough cookies who have whipped cancers ***!! I too, have loved your support, hearing your tales of what you have been up to in your life and journeys. 
Now it is onward and upwards!! Keep enjoying life, doing the things you enjoy and look after yourselves. 
Sam, take it easy. Good to hear you are taking a month to recover and clean (!!) and getting a lovely new handbag - can never have too many bags or shoes.

Christine, keep your painting going, watch the hearing aids don't get left near the dog!! I hope your aches and pains ease and you are enjoying your garden/neighbours and family (still makes me smile how they wouldn't let you do anything!)

You will be pleased to know that my air con is amazing but poor hubby usually wakes up freezing. I turn it on before we go to bed, to cool the room down, then switch it off. But I've had to set the timer so it comes on around 1:30am as my hot sweats seem to be starting earlier! Oh how I crave a decent nights sleep! 
Please do stay in touch!! I already miss seeing your messages!! Enjoy the summer, let's hope CV doesn't scupper too much. 
Much love

Caroline xx

Hi girls, Yorkshire_defector1 and cazrosie 

Nice to hear how you are both doing as we approach normal life post cancer, shame about the normality being a bit cockeyed because of Covid19. 

I am glad you are apparently recovering well from the rads, Sam, I hope being emotional isn't too hard for you, it seems to be a common result of taking all the hormones. I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to feel a bit more emotional than usual after what you have experienced over the last months. Note I said experienced, not suffered, because as you say, some things have been lovely, like the support you had from your family and friends, so it hasn't all been bad.  Let me know how you go on with the Bisphosphonates, I've refused them so far.  I'm not worried about the Covid, but I'm again the victim of my children's fears, so I won't be going anywhere soon, even if lockdown is easing.  Actually, there was something in the news recently saying the R rate is increasing here in the North West, so I will stay put until it is really safe to go out and about.

Caroline,  there is nothing cosier than being wrapped up warm in a room that is cooled by an air conditioner. We had them for many years when living abroad and my daughter has them in her living room and bedroom.  I would have welcomed one over the last week or two but I had to make do with an open window and a fan. 

I'm glad to say my headaches and other aches and pains seem to be in remission for now.  I am like a different person when I'm pain free. I happened to say to my daughter a week or so ago, that I'd forgotten to tell her my headaches had eased, but she said she knew. When I asked how, she said because I'd stopped moaning about them! The knees are doing well, too. I am walking without pain because of the exercises, and it's nice to be able to take Archie out more than once a day, now, although the pain still comes and bites me sometimes at night. If it is bad enough,  I get up and take a pill but usually I'm too lazy to get up and fall asleep again.

I am being very good about locking the hearing aids away when I take them out, so Archie can't get them, no accidents, yet, although I have been known to forget which of the four boxes I put them in, as I go from room to room searching for them!

I am still painting, Caroline, I have done a colourful landscape with heeland coo, (highland cow) in acrylics this week. It only took a couple of days because the paints dry so quickly.  I suspect it is one I'm going to lose to my daughter because she never usually says much about my paintings, but the ones she does comment on usually end up at her house and when I showed it to her on FaceTime this morning she was very complimentary about it.  I have finally succumbed to the pleasure of listening to an audio book while I do my painting. It's great not having to choose between my two favourite pastimes. I listened to The Brightest Star in the Sky, by Marian Keyes, a hilariously funny book with the strangest of plots! The narrator was excellent, which is very important.  I have abandoned a few audio books because the narration was not to my taste.

I have an appointment booked for next month at the breast clinic, presumably, the delayed six month checkup, so I will definitely report to you both when (if) it happens.

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay happy!

Love

Christine xxx

Hi AMil,

I am sorry to hear you are joining the club no one wants to join!! I think my advice would be to always try and remain positive. Medicine has moved on so much that breast cancer has a really high survival rate - in the 90%'s. Talk to people - friends/family or even us. I found that people who had been through/were going through BC had a better understanding of what I was going through but my friends and family were still amazing. Try and keep busy, between appointments. Waiting for scans/results is definitely one of the hardest parts!!! 
Remember, this is just a 'blip' The 3 of us all had very different journeys but we were there to talk about it and share worries and advice. Happy to do the same for you.

Caroline

Hi Amil,

I'm sorry to hear you have joined the club, or the family, as I thought of it when I was at the beginning of the cancer journey, but you've found the right place to talk about things.  

You are at the worst time of your new reality, and it's a scary time when you have young children. The waiting for results is the hardest part of the whole journey. As Caroline said keep busy, talk to people you feel are not going to be too freaked out by your news and try to stay positive, it really is just a blip, a few months of intense emotions and so many flipping appointments.  You don't know until you are affected just how many people have had breast cancer, some of them many many years ago. I was surprised to find several of my neighbours were all living perfectly normal lives after breast cancer and I couldn't believe how many people said, "My friend/ sister/mother had it about twenty years ago". In fact I began to think there was nothing special about having it at all! Not that I expect you to feel like that at this stage.

If you have read many of the posts from Caroline, Sam and myself you will have a good idea of the kind of things to expect in the future, all of which we have survived with our sense of humour intact, if not our bust lines. 

The three of us who have kept this thread going, and the people who have just popped in from time to time, have all had different experiences, different treatments etc but the three of us are feeling that we are near the end of the journey as far as our initial treatments are concerned. What the future holds, we don't know, but we are each in a position to know we will cope, as we have coped with our lives over the last few months. 

One piece of advice I would offer, is to ask if you are confused or worried or even if you disagree with anything you are being told.  Don't feel you have to accept what you are told until you fully understand it. It is your body and you are the person being affected by all this.  The doctors and nurses may seem to be a bit offhand sometimes, it's just because they have seen it so often and they know that you will probably be absolutely fine (if you do as they say) but they are not God and it is your right to question.  

Good luck with what's to come, it won't be half as bad as you imagine at this stage. Accept any and all help offered, keep your sense of humour, enjoy your kids. And if you need a rant to say things you don't want to say to your loved ones, this is the place to come, we all understand where you are coming from!

Christine xxx

Bionic Christine & Cool Caroline

Good to hear you are both doing well with Christine's new abilities to not ache and vault over buildings and Caroline's now frosty bedroom and husband who now resembles an Inuit.

I finally had an "event"!  Whoop, whoop.  It wasn't quite the event I wanted but still got out of the house somewhere nice, went to Wisley (RHS) which is near me down here, terribly middle class dahling but the plants are sooo lovely and the lovely Adrian made us all some scrummy sarnies (why do they always taste so much better when someone else makes them?  Probably as Adrian is not a tight ar5e who overloads them with fillings & butter..).  But of course it was Saturday when it rained all day, my hands were sooo cold, luckily I'd taken a scarf (more for if the sun came out to protect radiated skin!) so didn't get hypothermia but not being dressed for a Yorkshire summer didn't dint my enjoyment.  But by heck was I absolutely jiggered after 2 hrs of just aimless wandering!

So arm pit is still annoyingly red & sore (my friend says its my baboon's ar5e) still...its got to calm down at some point surely?  I never realised what a sensitive soul I am (ha!!), I blame those darn emotions (again).

I've also discovered this morning that some evil insect has bitten all over my neck, looks like a vampire tried to induct me into the clan last night...think I may have to de-flea them cats...

Am glad that your kids are so overly protective Christine, they'll have you living till 100+ whether you like it or not! Admittedly it may involve literally wrapping you in bubble wrap for a number of years in an oxygen tent! How many face masks have they bought for you?  Adrian bought me one but haven't needed it yet, doesn't mix well with my lip gloss!  Its so disgusting when I take the ones off that are given by hospital and they're covered in foundation...they're like a mini Turin shroud after I've done with them.

Can I ask - do you both still do the post surgery arm exercises you were given? My BCN tells me I still should do them 3 times a day which sounds a tad excessive as my mobility is great, she tells me its more the higher risk of lymphodema (given ANC) but 3 times a day! 

Just as well I chased those bisphosphonates as had slipped through the net, chemo ward was waiting for BCN referral and BCN were sending me to chemo ward...love going round in circles!  Anyway hopefully should have first one with zolodex at beginning July (think my veins are ok now thankfully) so that will put me out of action for a week or so and then should be fit to go back to work in some capacity (boo!).

Christine- like you my sister is very arty and she did some lovely (abstract) big pictures for me about 15 yrs ago but as she has no sense (its a genetic thing) she put on that much oil paint that they took about a year to dry - what an idiot eh?  Anyway they now adorn my living room & bedroom, love the individuality of them...and the fact that I didn't have to pay shop prices for them of course!

You'll also laugh that I entered a raffle recently and won some cushions!!  Still determined...

Alison - if you're still following hope our messages helped and that one of those CT cancellations came through.

Right stay safe ladies.

Sam X

Hi Sam,

I don't know how I missed your latest message. I only came on today to have a whinge!  My appointment for July 8th which was supposed to be my very late six month check up has been relegated to the telephone again! I'm a bit p'd off because this appointment was made after the previous cancellation in April.  
I'm sorry you are still having problems with your underarm, I'm afraid that might last for a while. I'm not sore under there now, but all round the area feels tight and uncomfortable and there is a spot in front, where my swelling starts that is still tender. 

I'm happy about being able to have a support bubble with my daughter now.  She has been bringing my shopping and we have had conversations at the social distance but it was lovely to be able to hug her again.  She came for Sunday lunch and it felt lovely and normal to be able to sit indoors and just relax.  She hasn't bought me a face mask because she has no intention of letting me out into the big scary COVID world!  However, I was very surprised, last week to receive a  hand written letter, who does that any more? It was from the cousin who commissioned the double portrait, she is a very clever sewer (person who sews, not drain pipe!) and she had sent me two masks that she made for me! Her mother who is my friend is already venturing out with her mask on.  I was talking to the mother yesterday and she was really going mad with the lockdown as they live in a very isolated position with no neighbours to chat to over the fence so she was desperate to get out again.

I have to admit I'm not still doing the arm exercises, although I still do the lymphoedema exercises for my boob.  My arm feels tight from underarm halfway down to the elbow but my range of movement is perfect. I still massage the arm sometimes, when I think on.

Good luck with the bisphosphonates, I refused them because the prediction only gave a 1% improvement in my survival rate, which didn't seem worth it for the possible side effects, at my age. Are you having the infusion? My friend had one after she broke her hip, and she felt really ill for a few days afterwards, but she's fine now.

Will you be able to go back to work, or will you work from home?  My daughter is an accountant in an educational trust and has been working from home since lockdown and they may decide to continue this after normality comes back because the central office building they use costs a lot of money and the CEO is conscious of the cost while no one is working there. As the adaptations to the schools in the trust will be very expensive to ensure the children's safety, he may decide to lose the central office.  My daughter is hoping they do because her migraines have reduced considerably since she doesn't have to drive in to work every day and she gets far more work done now there aren't all the interruptions you get in an office. 

I did laugh when I read about your raffle prize! Determined? Ha! No chance!

i think I'm going to try and change my profile picture, if I can remember what to do.  I am really happy with my painting of the Heeland Coo, so I want to share it. Everyone who has seen it says they love it, and I love it, not for the fact I painted it, but because it's a happy scene.  I can't remember where I got the reference photo from, but it made me smile. I'm working on a new portrait of the dogs, only the two now, not two and a half! I have found the wonderful Alkyd oil paints that dry quickly, so I won't have to wait forever for the paint to dry.

Hi Caroline, if you see this! Hope you are ok.

Christine xxx

Christine
You didn't miss it as you've just answered!! You'll be glad to know my armpit is a bazillion times better, although the lack of skin soreness means that the underlying discomfort is now noticeable again!  Ha!! This could partly be due to the fact that I may have (!!) overdone it on Monday's barre session with tricep exercises (no blummin weights though- how rubbish is my duff arm??). I do however think that the area below my armpit and seroma below are still creating some discomfort which is annoying but does not stop me doing things (though am still tentative about lifting heavy stuff, like a big bag of compost).

Its so annoying when these after effects hang around isn't it?  If things like the above & your lymphodema would bugg4r off we'd all be much better for it eh?

All splendid here, even went to visit my old dear near Caroline, in the New Forest, last week, told her she wasn't allowed any hugs ( I don't want to get all Typhoid Mary on her) but I was more than happy for her to feed me - did I mention that I am an accomplished glutton? Good to see her, and abviously made her week by talking at her for 3 hrs (think she needed a lie down afterwards, never mind my needs).  I must say it was a delight to see the M25 so well behaved, I don't think I've seen it like that even on a Sunday for over a decade.  I'm glad your bubbling with your daughter, makes like better and easier all round, I have 50% of bubble with mother now sort of and 50% with the boyfriend...am not sure that's how its supposed to work but that's my take on it!

I do think that hospitals are using the cv 19 impact as an "excuse" to do what they want to to make life easier for them without any thought of what the patient may want or need, can you request a (masked) face to face meeting?  May be worth a go...

Just noticed your new pic (even before I read about your foray into figuring out how to do it - and well done!) and determined that either Archie has been eating things he shouldn't have (again!) or that's one of your new creations, looks very impressive...and this from someone who has never had an artistic cell in her body...I like!  I used to live near some highland coos and they used to scare the pants off the boyfriend at the time...and that was why the great idiot had to go...

Year re the bisph's its the infusion, am mainly doing it to save my osteopenic bones from the naughty letrozole but also good that it can prevent bone cancer, if I have any bad ongoing side effects will re-think things.  Am planning to feel poo afterwards with flu like side effects and then am actually planning to get my lazy bum back to work...about time too!  Am "lucky" in that my office is old and rammed full of people so will be closed for remainder of this year as no chance of achieving any sort of social distancing so makes my very phased return to work even better so hurrah for that!  Will miss some human interaction with work pals though, and the chances of technology not proving to be a real pain in the missing boob are mimimal!
Suspect that thoughts at my work are very similar to those in your daughters office...time will tell, I don't really mind either way as long as I can pay bills and ensure those cats remain overweight.

Managed this morning to book some National Trust tickets for weekend after next - what an annoying system, the RHS one is far easier...looking forward to getting out & about some more. Am amazed that I wasn't too bad with the daft weather today, I think being nuked recently and having stupid hot flushes has acclimatised me to 30+ degree temps, I do hope I'll be able to get some quality sleep later...

Hope all is fine with you & Caroline (Caroline - don't work too hard, its too hot!!).

Sam X

Hi ladies,

Good to hear from you both!! All good here. I had a 6 month "holistic" follow up call yesterday. When I had the first one, after my radiotherapy I poo pooed it and told them I was fine. This time I really appreciated the call. They had sent me a sheet to fill in, highlighting any thing I was worried/distressed about - practically, family, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Call lasted 30 min and she has recommended that I make use of some of the local charities that offer therapies like reiki, massage, aromatherapy etc. She is also going to contact the breast unit to see if I can go for a physical check up before my next appointment, which isn't until October.  
Life is carrying on as normal - I've got a hair appointment for next Saturday at 9am and I can't wait!! I have my hair really short and usually have it cut every 5 weeks so it's desperately in need of a trim!!

Work is work. Our holiday in August has been cancelled. I wasn't surprised. We were due to go to Florida but their COVID rates are very high at the moment so probably best we wait until next year. Hubby wants us to go away in a camper van - can't say I'm thrilled about that as I hate camping of any kind!! 
I'm interested to see if opening bars etc is going to push the Covid infection rates back up. I for one, won't be going out and visiting them!! Cheaper and nicer in my garden!! 
Anyway, off to see a friend, in her garden so hoping the rain holds off!! 
Take care and stay safe xx